A WORD TO THE WISE: Proverbs 28: 19. "Work it, Baby!"

Proverbs 28: 19     He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows frivolity will have poverty enough!

Proverbs 28:19.  The common expression is that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve already got.

Well, the Bible says that if you only do what you’ve always done, you’ll get less than what you’ve already got.

In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25: 14-31), Jesus had harsh words for the people who think that it’s good enough to just maintain their status quo.

^You ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. ^So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. 

‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. ^

And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (Matthew 25: 27-29)

            It is a lie, a sad, horrible, harmful lie, that to succeed all you have to do is “Think positive.” 

            You have to work positive.  You positively HAVE TO work.

            It’s a lie, a stupid, wasteful, self-defeating lie, that if you want prosperity, the most important thing is to act prosperous. 

You don’t get paid to ball beyond your budget.  Despite what rappers tell you, nobody (with money) is going to see you throwing money away and say, “Hey.  That’s someone I want to give my money to.”  Prosperity is not the prize at the end of a fashion show (unless you have designed and sown the winning fashions). 

Dude, you have to work and create prosperity. You have to build something.  You have to sacrifice, and learn, and make connections, and prove yourself over and over every doggone day.  Somedays you have to kick your pride in the nuts and take opportunities even when they’re handed to you on a trashcan lid by somebody with a nasty attitude--- especially when the nice, smiling people aren’t actually opening any doors for you.

The ground may be fertile and the rains may be plentiful, but if you won’t plow and plant and fertilize and weed and water and pick and work the land------you’ll starve to death right there in the land of milk and honey.

Our churches which aren’t full can’t be filled by us simply looking harder at the people who already attend.  We’ve got to pray and get out there in the highways and byways, hedgerows and house rows where the unchurched people are.  We gotta work the land.

If your business has no customers, the customers aren’t going to show up because you yell louder at your idle employees or because you put your head down on the counter and stare at the formica.  You’ve got to pray and get out there and let them know who you are, where you are, and why they need to Come On In!

If your life is not progressing in a prosperous direction, if you find yourself worse off than you were  4 years, 4 months, or 4 relationships ago; pray and let God show you the behaviors that were common during each season of failure.  Then submit to God and stop doing that old junk. 

Don’t worry so much about looking better.  Concentrate more on doing better in God’s eyes, on being a better person according to God’s Word. 

The sun is hot.  The labor is hard.  And sometimes you’re the only one who shows up to work in your field.  Get at it.

You’ll look up one day and realize that there’s no way in the world you can pull this off on your own.  If you are praying and you have been praying (and by praying I mean listening, too, not just rattling off a list of demands)--- then the end of your strength and abilities is where the favor of God kicks in and “things happen for you.”

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12: 9)

The Lord says: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”  (2 Corinthians 12: 9)

Do more.  Do better.   If you just keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to keep getting less than you’ve always gotten.

---Anderson T. Graves II

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church

Call/ fax: 334-288-0577
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Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Rd.,
Montgomery, AL 36116